RELIGIOUS CODE SWITCHING IN ARABIC LYRICS: TYPES, FUNCTIONS AND TRANSLATION CHALLENGES
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Date
2023-05-14
Authors
Iba’a Tayseer Jadah
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Abstract
Language as a system of customary spoken, signed, or written symbols is considered a tool through which humans express themselves as members of a social group and contributors to its culture. People who desire to contribute to cultural diversity and openness benefit from multilingualism. Code Switching (CS) and mixing are beneficial and dynamic phenomena that allow speakers to employ two languages simultaneously. When translating multilingual texts, a translator may encounter various aspects if obligated to transfer embedded foreign codes from a language other than the dominant language of the source text (ST) into the target text (TT), especially when the translator deals with a religious text. This thesis investigates how CS and translation are utilised in Arabic lyrics, highlighting some distinctions between how they are used in these songs and how they are used elsewhere. This descriptive, analytical thesis will look at a selection of songs of Sami Yusuf, Maher Zain, Raef Haggag, and Hamzah Robertson’s works. The study concludes that a deeper understanding of CS of terminology in terms of linguistic and creative features is required to translate multilingual song lyrics better. Some difficulties related to the transfer of instances of CS into the target texts are discussed in terms of the CS strategies’ typology. The strategies include the use of translation to substitute or reduplicate the source material, rewriting with varying levels of difference from the original, juxtaposing components from different languages, and composing directly in a CS variety.
Keywords: Code switching, types, functions, translation challenges.